The colourful life and times of Lady Mary Heath, Irish aviator, athlete and writer.

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Thursday, August 08, 2013

Sophie's African Trips - How Many?

One
of the great mysteries of Lady Heath's life is quite how much time
she spent in Africa in the 1920s; she claims she made eight visits,
but it seems more like four. Or perhaps she meant that she made
eight trips in total to and from Africa. The final one of these would
have been her 1928 flight.

the
participants in the 1919 Soldier Settlement Scheme in Kenya" was
published

by
African Affairs in 1992, we can shed some light on her movements at
the time.

Both
the Eliott-Lynns had served with the armed forces during the First
World War and were both allocated farms under the Soldier Settlement
Scheme - she as Mrs. S.C. Eliot-Lynn and he as Major W.D.E. Lynn.
They used the National Bank of South
Africa in London as their postal address. She secured Farm 438B of some
995 acres and Farm 431B of 1025 acres. The farms were close together
and in the Muhoroni district of Kenya - rather lower in altitude and
closer to the fevers of Lake Victoria than most settlers liked.

The
Major's file begins in 1922, by which time the original applicants
for the
scheme were supposed to have taken up and occupied their farms for
six months in
order to secure possession. The letter announcing this was sent to
the Major
at Tanga in Tanganyika.

He
appeared in person at the Land Office in Nairobi in November 1922 to
present proof that he hadn't been retired until August 1921, which
became the date of allotment, giving them until August 1924 to take
up their farms. It also meant that he owed rent on both
farms (they were held on 999 year leases).

Around this time, Sophie
made what appears to have been her first trip to East Africa,
arriving back in Southampton on March 12. Judging from her book of poetry "East African Nights", she appears to have spent time in Kacharoba, near Kiumbi, which is north of Nairobi on the way to Thika, and at Nakaru.

In November 1923, the
Major paid rent on both of the farms and wrote to the Land Office to
tell them that he would be leaving Tanganyika to occupy his farm at
the end of the year. Sophie had arrived for her second trip to East
Africa; she later claimed that she had been forced to track down her
husband “in the bush”.

On
January 3, 1924, writing from "Bushari Estate, Pangani,
Tanganyika" Eliott-Lynn noted: "As I shall not be able to
take up occupation of this farm in order to comply with the
conditions laid down, I have given it to my wife Sophia Catherine
Eliott-Lynn as from this date." (this was also the only time in
his file that he referred to himself as Eliott-Lynn).

The
Land Office, in response to a request from her, provided details of
both farms in

January. During this visit , Sophie was based mainly in Pangani, but also visited Mtundera, Hali, and Kacharoba, Kiambu as before.

By this stage the marriage was in serious difficulty; Sophie later
claimed that her husband had threatened her and she was forced to
march through the jungle to escape him. He “threw her out on 1
January 1924” according to a report on her divorce in the East
African Standard.

In
February, she announced to the Land Office that she could not take
up the farm as she

had
an unavoidable eight-months absence in England (this was the only
letter

from
her in the file). In fact, she was heading back to England to start
divorce proceedings against her husband.

She
left R.O. Ney (a land agent) to fulfill the conditions. He occupied
and developed the farm, building a brick house and ploughing fifty
acres of land to secure the farm. The farm was officially
transferred to her in August 1925, around the time the divorce was
made final and she was back in a London court filing a maintenance
petition. Ney paid the rent on the farm until it was sold to Norman
Butler in 1928.

As
C.J.D. Duder points out, it seems like neither Eliott-Lynn nor his
wife ever occupied the farms. “The usual formula for soldier
settlers who did not take up their farms was to sell the rights to a
local settler or land agent who would carry out the necessary
occupation and development. In return the soldier settler would
receive a "premium" for surrendering the

farm.
Premiums tended to be small since you were selling the right to the
farm. Premiums I've come across range from £50 to £200.

Not
until 1927 did Sophie return to Africa; an article by her on flying
to Kenya by air was published in the East African Standard in March
1927. During this African sojourn, she stayed at “Seremi” the
Kisumu estate of John Carberry, originally from Castle Freke in Co
Cork, who lived there with his second wife Maia. While there, she
met Sir Sefton Brancker, then director of civil aviation at the Air
Ministry, who was in East Africa for the inauguration of the East
Africa air mail service from Kisumu to Khartoum. In the same month,
she's reported to
have made
a shooting trip to Lake Hannington
(Bogoria)
north
of Nakuru with
Auriol Lee, the
a popular British stage actress who became a
successful West End and Broadway theatrical producer and director.

In her middle years, Lee had taken up flying and
became the first woman to cross the Equator while flying over Africa
with
her
lover Sir
Sefton Brancker.
She was also once awarded a prize for flying 1,000 miles across the
Mediterranean
Sea.

By
May, Sophie was back in London when the news came through that her
ex-husband Eliott-Lynn had been found dead in the river Thames off
the Chelsea Embankment.

Almost
exactly a year later, Sophie, now Lady Heath, would return to London
from Africa in much different circumstances after the flight across
Africa that would become her most celebrated achievement.